Chapter Text
Mizuki stirred awake in her empty house. It had been 187 days since the one object of her desires and affections had just up and left the city in the middle of the night. She had been preparing for today for the past little bit over 6 months, and now that the time had come to execute her plan she was just a scared little girl who wanted nothing more than to be sat by Ena’s side again.
But, to ever be able to do that again, she would have to do this. It could take her months, years, or a week. It was impossible to guess.
Mizuki stood up pulling on the outfit she had laid out the day prior. It contained a dark muted green tunic with white ribbons on it that Ena had commissioned for her many moons ago. It was barely ever worn as Mizuki was far too scared to ruin it, but if there was any appropriate occasion it would be this. To go under it she had gotten a dark, long sleeved, insulating under shirt to assure she wouldn’t get cold. It was still the very tail end of winter, so being warm was important as you could still easily find snow. She also had a pair of black, easy to move in pants, and her regular shoes which she had added metal soles too to increase their endurance.
The girl glanced to the side and also grabbed her little draw string baggie of coins. In the past few moon cycles Mizuki had sold off basically all of her non-clothing possessions to gather money. It was much easier to carry coins than it was to carry food, clothes, and a sleeping bag. Now fully geared up she glanced around her house for a final time.
It was… not the best living accommodation. The thing had been built from wood aeons ago, before even Mizuki or her parents were born, so it was far outdated compared to the concrete houses surrounding it. The floor board were rotten as there was nobody to maintain or properly clean them for the past decade, as Mizuki wasn’t taught how to properly take care of them before both her parents’ passing. Not like it mattered now anyways.
This little rickety excuse of a house would now sit empty to rot more than it already had. Maybe someone who was without a home would decide to stop by and stay for a while. Or maybe it’d be demolished in Mizuki’s absence. Nothing could tell its fate, except for time.
Mizuki walked out into the… honestly gray and empty looking town lying outside her house. It wasn’t just 187 days since her soulmate disappeared without another word, it was also 187 days since the city’s governing nobility disappeared, who Mizuki’s little crush was unfortunately a member of.
Other noble families were still deciding as to who would get to rule over the city now, but without nobility a lot of the people living there’s livelihoods had come to a halt due to the lack of exportation of goods, so they were forced to migrate too. It used to be so loud and lively the moment you left your house but now all that remained was a small community comprised of merchants trading the essentials between each other. There was only a finite amount of money in the city too, around 5,000 coins left between all of the couple dozen residents, which Mizuki managed to scrounge up 1,000 of. Mizuki up and leaving would remove a fifth of the economy and her home town would probably fall more into ruin, but there was nothing to be done. It was all doomed anyways.
As Mizuki walked through the generally barren and compact laid brick streets her mind wandered to pondering the fates of all the residents that used to be here. Maybe she’d meet a fair few of them on her journey. Maybe they had all just perished after setting out on a journey similar to hers without proper planning.
Mizuki’s plan was simple. Stop at every city in the world governed by arcane casting nobility and ask if the nobility ruling them was the Shinonome’s. Maybe stop for a few nights, buy supplies only when necessary, and read the local newspaper if any existed to keep tabs on which cities were run by the arcane.
Over the past few moon cycles Mizuki had compiled a comprehensive list of every city that was currently run by a family of arcane casters with a singular daughter.
Travelling publications often didn’t list family names of who exactly ran a given city, but promotional details did tend to detail how many family members they were and what their position was, so this was a fairly easy if extremely tedious task.
The list, along with a map he had purchased aeons ago, were in a fully waterproof holster secured to Mizuki’s waist by one of the ribbons fastened to her tunic. It was the only other object she would set out with that wasn’t her coin purse.
Mizuki’s shoes clacked to a halt as she reached it. The city gates. Every city was surrounded by a giant wall, sometimes even multiple, built up over centuries. They had originally been made to stop nobility fighting over land, as a giant immovable wall wasn’t something you could argue with, but they had also served to effectively protect cities from outside threats and the elements for centuries. Each of them only had one entry point, being large wooden steel reinforced gates. Gates were different based on which region of the world you were in, so Mizuki had also scribbled down a gate region guide on the back of her map.
Some regions had wildly different customs and temperatures from each other, so Mizuki felt like journaling those findings somewhere, as nobody else had really done something similar before. Maybe she’d be able to sell these guides to travellers if she never ended up becoming her one true love’s guard again.
But that wasn’t a possibility.
Mizuki vowed to be there until Ena’s dying day. She didn’t care if it would take her decades, or even the rest of her fickle lifespan to find her again. She would.